made a remarkable MS. map entitled _Carte de la Riviere du Mississippi,
dressee sur les Memoires de M. Le Sueur_.]

Le Sueur, with no authority from government, had opened relations of trade
with the wild Sioux of the Plains, whose westward range stretched to the
Black Hills, and perhaps to the Rocky Mountains. He reached the settlements
of Louisiana in safety, and sailed for France with four thousand pounds of
his worthless blue earth. [Footnote: According to the geologist
Featherstonhaugh, who examined the locality, this earth owes its color to a
bluish-green silicate of iron.] Repairing at once to Versailles, he begged
for help to continue his enterprise. His petition seems to have been
granted. After long delay, he sailed again for Louisiana, fell ill on the
voyage, and died soon after landing. [Footnote: Besides the long and
circumstantial _Relation de Penecaut_, an account of the earlier part
of Le Sueur's voyage up the Mississippi is contained in the _Memoire du
Chevalier de Beaurain_, which, with other papers relating to this
explorer, including portions of his Journal, will be found in Margry, VI.
See also _Journal historique de l'Etablissement des Francais a la
Louisiane_, 38-71.]

Before 1700, the year when Le Sueur visited the St. Peter, little or
nothing was known of the country west of the Mississippi, except from the
report of Indians. The romances of La Hontan and Matthieu Sagean were
justly set down as impostures by all but the most credulous. In this same
year we find Le Moyne d'Iberville projecting journeys to the upper
Missouri, in hopes of finding a river flowing to the Western Sea. In 1703,
twenty Canadians tried to find their way from the Illinois to New Mexico,
in hope of opening trade with the Spaniards and discovering mines.
[Footnote: _Iberville a ----, 15 Fev. 1703_ (Margry, VI. 180).] In
1704 we find it reported that more than a hundred Canadians are scattered